


Uppercuts and heart spark

by hungerpunch



Category: One Direction (Band)
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-07-05
Updated: 2013-07-05
Packaged: 2017-12-17 17:06:33
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,867
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/869926
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hungerpunch/pseuds/hungerpunch
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"Danny is eight and he’s the boy that Zayn goes over to hang out with and ends up getting pinned to the ground in a wrestling match for his trouble, bruises inevitably mottling his shins, knees, hips, upper arms. He always goes back anyway, even though he never wins."</p>
            </blockquote>





	Uppercuts and heart spark

**Author's Note:**

> a hundred thankful kisses to those who cheered this through the stages of development--[kayla](http://archiveofourown.org/users/lookingatstars/pseuds/lookingatstars), [lindsay](http://archiveofourown.org/users/icecreamsocialist), [hostagesfic](http://archiveofourown.org/users/hostagesfic/). thank you to sweet [gina](http://archiveofourown.org/users/castoffstarter) for the beta ♥

Zayn is six when Danny gives him the friendship bracelet that he braided at summer camp; he had to sit out an afternoon of football at the crafts table because of a nasty sprained ankle. The bracelet is black and red, twined tight except for where it feathers out softly after its knot. Danny’s got his bottom lip sucked between his teeth and his chin raised, ready to defend his creation against mockery, until Zayn asks for help putting it on. His shoulders drop and he immediately turns his attention to fastening the braid around Zayn’s knobby wrist, eyelashes sweeping with the downturn of his gaze. Danny is eight and he’s the boy that Zayn goes over to hang out with and ends up getting pinned to the ground in a wrestling match for his trouble, bruises inevitably mottling his shins, knees, hips, upper arms. He always goes back anyway, even though he never wins.

Zayn is eleven the first time Danny rescues him from a party. He’s squished into the corner of an old couch in the dark basement of Courtney Taylor’s house. It’s a birthday party and there are streamers, metallic helium balloons that are already sinking to the floor, a disco ball spinning fragments of light around them. Zayn only knows Courtney a little, and has barely talked to anyone so far, uncomfortable with everyone else’s easy inside jokes and the joint a mangy kid named Evan is passing. By some miracle, Courtney’s older brother Dustin and a gaggle of his friends troop downstairs, undoubtedly looking to spoil the party. Zayn couldn’t care less because Danny is among them, and they notice each other right away. Danny knows the look on Zayn’s face too well to ignore, and isn’t that down to smash a girl’s party besides. He taps Dustin’s shoulder in farewell, crafts a casual excuse, handshake back-slaps, and then subtly beckons Zayn, who peels himself off the couch and drifts up the stairs behind Danny without saying goodbye to Courtney.

“Lame?” Danny asks as they stroll down the sidewalk away from Courtney’s house.

“Pretty much, yeah,” Zayn answers.

“Did you smoke?”

Zayn shakes his head, not bothering for a second with the bravado he might have used in the face of any other friend. He feels Danny’s hand come up around the back of his neck and give a reassuring squeeze before dropping away. “Good,” Danny says, “I’ll teach you, in a little while. If you like.” Zayn nods and relaxes; Danny is the only voice of reason that’s cool enough for Zayn to heed.

\---

Danny is fifteen the first time he legitimately loses a wrestling match to Zayn, outside in the Malik’s backyard. Danny swallows the innate frustration of being beaten and laughs, rubs the mud off his face. He reaches out to pinch Zayn’s cheek obnoxiously while he coos that he’s proud, only layering on the saccharine because he’s dead serious, and to celebrate he teaches Zayn to smoke. Zayn is thirteen and trying not to be nervous and sucks so hard off the bong that he scorches his throat and coughs forever, hacking grossly. Danny rubs his back while his lungs heave. “Not even judging you, mate,” he’s saying as Zayn wipes water from his eyes. “Coughing gets you higher anyway.” 

Danny is seventeen the first time Zayn gets a blowjob, from a girl in the back of Danny’s mom’s car while Danny hangs out in the Tesco Express reading magazines he isn't going to buy, trying to keep his eyes off the clock and away from the windows facing the parking lot. It was his idea in the first place, pulling over on the way home from a concert and telling them not to make a mess, but now he feels restless. Anxious. How long could Zayn really last anyway? Danny gives them another ten minutes to be gracious and ignores how soft Zayn’s mussed hair looks when he climbs back into the car. They drop the girl, Yvonne, off at her house and as soon as she’s two steps away from the car Zayn says, “Holy shit.” Danny keeps his eyes on the road but offers Zayn a sly half-smirk that neither invites nor dismisses details. He’s grateful, though, when Zayn leaves it at that, and wonders if that amount of class is his own doing.

Danny is still seventeen when that question begins to haunt him— _is that my doing_? When Zayn picks up hip-hop, boxing, acting classes, Danny bites his lip and prays he hasn’t had too much influence, hasn’t prevented Zayn from realizing his own interests organically. Then Zayn starts to sing (not for show, really, just when they’re hanging out), gets into collecting comics, and develops an affection for jewelry—ears pierced and baubles in clusters on his fingers—and Danny breathes a sigh of relief.

\---

Zayn is sixteen when Danny asks Alicia Chekov out, and he’s sixteen when they go steady. He’s sixteen seeing Danny’s blissed, lazy grins and Alicia’s winks; watching Danny’s hands frame curvy hips, Alicia’s arms snaking around Danny’s trim waist. He’s sixteen and telling himself he’s just taking notes, watching them together, wondering how long they could really last anyway? He’s almost seventeen when Alicia breaks it off. Zayn counts on his fingers the days Danny doesn’t react: one, two, three days. On the fourth day, they climb up to the roof of the apartment complex where the Riach family lives, and sit shoulder-to-shoulder, sharing a spliff. Danny leans his head against Zayn’s.

“You miss her?” Zayn asks, because he knows an opportunity when he sees it.

Danny nods his head slowly, then hums. “Yeah. Her, or the idea of her. Not sure yet.”

“What’s the _idea_ of her?” Zayn asks, but he’s not daft—he’s in an accelerated English course this year.

“Just. Someone to be mine, yeah? Er not, not like mine-mine,y’know, but just, someone to really care about. And someone to care about me, right?”

Zayn is almost seventeen on that rooftop, with Danny’s head against his, when he thinks it, _really_ definitively thinks it for the first time: that _he’s_ Danny’s. _Yours-yours_ , he thinks, his heart racing suddenly. Danny hoists his head up and takes the spliff from Zayn’s idle fingers. Zayn turns to look at him and thinks _mine-mine_. “Yeah,” he replies, voice a bit of a croak. “I know what you mean, man.” A pause. “For what it’s worth, I care about you,” he says, splitting an exaggerated, cartoonish smile, sticking out his tongue to mask how intensely sincere he is. Danny squints his eyes at Zayn a moment, then grabs his chin.

“Did I teach you that?” he demands, and Zayn is taken aback.

“Teach me what?” he asks, eyebrows up.

“To make a joke out of honest feelings,” Danny says, quick like he’s been waiting to catch Zayn at it. Zayn can’t drop Danny’s gaze and he feels like it's incinerating him. He gapes, unsure of what to say, because he hadn’t been trying to have a go at anything. Danny reads his anxiety and pulls Zayn’s face forward, presses a warm, light kiss to the middle of his forehead. “I care about you, too, Zayn. No joke.” He can’t hide the slight tremor in his voice and Zayn thinks that it’s the first time Danny’s expressed something to him in such a manner.

“Okay,” Zayn murmurs, exhaling slowly over Danny’s sternum, exposed by the low-slung tank appropriate for the muggy summer weather. “No joke, Danny, it wasn’t a joke.” He wants to touch the place Danny just kissed, feel if there’s a difference now, wants to tilt his head up and see Danny’s face, but he doesn’t. He waits for Danny to let go of his chin and lean back onto his elbows, out of Zayn’s space. Danny takes a drag off the spliff in lieu of saying anything and then passes it to Zayn, affording him the same relief. 

Zayn is eighteen when Danny leaves for London. It’s not an easy decision for anyone but it is where Danny found work pertaining to his field of interest, and, well. Anything to get beyond Bradford, really. The day Danny tells Zayn the verdict, Zayn feels small and crumpled with shock even though the possibility has been hovering for a couple of months through the interviewing process. He tries not to look too shaken apart, blinking and hunching his shoulders. Danny reaches for Zayn’s hand but aborts the movement halfway, floundering, and Zayn knows Danny feels guilty even though he shouldn’t.

Danny stuffs his hands into his pockets and asks if Zayn wants to go get tattoos.

He lets Zayn pick the design and pays the bill, and they leave with matching yin-yangs hidden under gauze. Zayn almost picked the infinity symbol but didn’t want to jinx anything.

On the day of Danny’s actual departure, Zayn watches Danny tuck his mom under his arm for a long while, rubbing her back and muttering reassurances against the top of her head. Then he hugs Ant, whose lips haven’t stopped quivering since breakfast that morning, the tip of his nose red and damp. Ant’s almost as tall as Danny, but Danny bodily rocks him back and forth anyway before kissing his cheek and slapping it gently for good measure, warm, open palm cradling Ant’s cheekbone for an extra second.

Zayn is last, and he feels the urge to cry building hot and heavy beneath the center of his clavicle. Danny doesn’t merely embrace Zayn—it feels like he splits open his chest, his body, and swallows Zayn whole. Zayn buries his face in Danny’s neck, inhales the smell of coconut oil and ground coffee. He can feel Danny’s ribs and hips pressing against his and _god_ , Zayn just wants to stay surrounded by him forever. “Take care of Ant,” Danny whispers in his ear, stubble scraping the side of Zayn’s face. “He loves you. You two will be just fine if you keep each other.” 

Zayn nods, because he knows, and he’s planning on it. It’s not like it’s impossible to visit London, either, but it’s common knowledge amongst them that there’s not too much leisure money lying about for traveling purposes, or for anything really. Danny’s already promised to be home for major holidays, and that’s the best that can be asked, truthfully.

\---

A full eight months later, Danny is twenty-one and coming home for a proper Eid al-Fitr with his family after trying to balance Ramadan with his new life in London. Bradford is humid after a rain shower earlier in the day, warm even as the sun sinks. Danny makes his way out of the train station, adjusting his grip on the bag over his shoulder. He squints his eyes and looks out over the steps of the station, searching...

His smile when he spots Ant and Zayn is uncontrollable, unthinking. The pair of them are sitting atop the trunk of Danny’s old car—the one he didn’t take to London because he couldn’t afford parking fees, so Ant’s driving it around these days—parked against the curb, knees knocking together and passing a bottle of water back and forth. They don’t notice him until he’s nearly halfway to them, and Ant sees him first, throwing his arms up abruptly and squawking loudly, already scrambling off the trunk. Zayn drops the bottle of water in surprise at the sudden movement and it bounce-rolls away across the pavement and nobody seems to care.

Ant leads the charge, bounding up the stairs to swoop into Danny happily, almost bending him backward with the force of his hug. “Safe, brother,” Ant says, smacking Danny’s back and kissing his cheek. 

“Safe,” Danny laughs. “How the fuck are you so much taller now?” he asks, stepping back and flicking the bill of Ant’s flat brim. 

“Been on that vitamin game, putting in at the gym,” Ant says smugly, his goal of growing taller than Danny clearly within reach.

Danny rolls his eyes. “Whatever,” he admonishes. “Where’s the Z man?” Ant jumps and steps aside.

They barely _see_ each other before they’re enfolded, Zayn’s arms coming up beneath Danny’s to wrap around him and cling tight, Danny’s face turned into the side of Zayn’s neck. They meld against each other; reminiscent of the last hug they shared, except strangely, Danny feels a lot more like crying now than he did then as he inhales Zayn’s usual scent—his standard cologne and spice and the clean whiff of his trendy hair product. He doesn’t know what it is, why his eyes are prickling, except for perhaps how every molecule of his body is frantically pulsing an electric repetition: _missed you missed you missed you._ He squeezes Zayn tighter, can feel his embrace pushing the air forcibly out of Zayn’s lungs, and bites the inside of his cheek to keep from shedding tears. He thinks, maybe, that this is relief.

When the need to breathe pries them apart, they barely speak, communicating instead with knowing looks and grins. Danny loops an arm around either boy and they all walk to the car, where Danny calls dibs on driving, leaving Ant to settle bitterly for shotgun. Danny can’t help the way his gaze flickers to Zayn in the rearview mirror every couple moments. 

Despite the closeness of their families, they separate for their respective Eid al-Fitr feasts, and Danny finds it a little easier to clear his head breaking fast with just his mom and Ant, away from the potency of Zayn’s presence.

The next night is all theirs, and they climb out on the roof of the apartment complex like they always used to. It hits Danny, then, what the strange constriction in his chest is. It’s that he missed Zayn so much, and in a few days, he’ll go back to missing him. He might already be missing him, before he’s even gone again. He swallows in a vain attempt to dislodge the leaden feeling, like a malcontent mass of something, that’s pooling in the back of his throat, and takes a seat next to Zayn.

“Got somethin’ I’ve been meaning to tell you,” Zayn says before Danny can say anything. They’re perched on the ledge of the roof, legs dangling over. There’s a buzz of precariousness in Danny’s stomach that’s at odds with the surge of nostalgia—all the time they spent up here.

Danny leans back on his hands and feels better for having steadied himself. “Go for it, mate,” he says.

Zayn scratches at the back of his head, where the hairs are shorn down to a close buzz, a self-conscious gesture that makes Danny’s brow furrow curiously. “I applied to Birkbeck, uh, the university. In London.”

Danny goes tense, his eyes widening. “Okay...” he trails, refusing to entertain the hundred fantasies of Zayn also being in London that crest over him immediately. “That’s great, good for you. Seriously. Did you hear back yet?”

“Yeah, actually,” Zayn starts, and he looks over his shoulder, back at Danny, a small smile scrunching his eyes up. “They accepted me and, well. They’re offering a really good scholarship, too.”

Danny sits up fast enough that he has to clutch Zayn’s shoulder to balance. “Zayn, mate, that’s incredible, I—I fuckin’ knew you had it in you, didn’t I. Didn’t I tell you? That you’d get places?” Danny pauses to breathe and chews his lip, frightened suddenly. “Wait, I mean. You are going, yeah?”

Zayn giggles, his tongue pushing against the backs of his teeth as he smiles at Danny. “That’s why I waited. To tell you, I mean. I didn’t want to say anything, before I knew for sure. But yeah, yeah I’m going.” 

“Fucking hell,” Danny laughs, and he can’t help leaning over to butt his head against Zayn’s playfully. “That’s what’s fucking happening, mate.” 

“You and me in London, yeah?” Zayn asks quietly, eyes twinkling. 

“You and me,” Danny agrees.

\---

Zayn turns twenty during the first weekend of his spring term at Birkbeck, holed up in the studio he and Danny live in. He’s clad in one of Danny’s jumpers and ensconced in at least three blankets to combat the stiff, relentless January chill leaking in the windowpanes, leafing through notes from his first week back. Technically, he shouldn’t even be awake. It’s six-thirty in the morning on a Saturday, and Danny is still tucked into his own bed, sleeping off a round of midnight celebratory drinks in Zayn’s honor, and the drunken Skype call with Ant that followed. But something had roused Zayn from a foggy, dreamless sleep while it was still dim outside, and he hadn’t been able to fall back asleep no matter how he tossed and turned.

He cracks his fingers and re-reads the same set of lecture notes for the second time. He’d gotten good enough marks his first term, but university presented wildly different parameters for success, and it’d caught him off-guard. He’s determined to do better this time.

He’s absorbed enough in reading that he misses the unassuming creak of Danny’s steps over the floorboards, and startles when a sleep-warm hand curls around his shoulder. “Zayn,” Danny says thickly. “What you fuckin’ doing up?”

Zayn takes his glasses off and rubs his eyes before craning his neck to look at Danny. “Could ask you the same,” he says.

“Water,” Danny says, holding up an empty glass. 

“Couldn’t sleep,” Zayn murmurs. “Cold.” 

“Make you a cuppa,” Danny croaks absently and shuffles on past him. Zayn thinks about protesting but doubts he can actually move; his body’s lethargic even though his mind is wide awake. Danny returns a few minutes later, his glass refilled and a steaming mug for Zayn, something herbal and decaf, he’s sure.

“C’mon,” Danny says as he presses the mug into Zayn’s frigid hands. 

“Eh?” Zayn grunts, bringing the mug up to his face and enjoying the wash of steam over his cheeks.

“C’mon,” Danny repeats, tugging tiredly at the back of Zayn’s shirt. “Bed.” 

“But—Tea—,” Zayn stutters, but ultimately succumbs, stumbling after Danny and trying not to spill his tea or trip over the tails of his blankets. Danny climbs unceremoniously back into bed first, then pats the space next to him, so Zayn makes himself at home, sitting up against the headboard and taking a tentative sip from his mug. Danny throws one lanky arm across Zayn’s hips and buries his face in the mass of blankets spilling over Zayn’s thigh. 

“Come down here when you’re done,” Danny slurs, and Zayn barely makes it out because, well, Danny’s face down on the mattress, but he hums in acknowledgment all the same. He takes his time and drinks his tea, looking over at his own bed, across from Danny’s on the far wall. It’s a bit cramped but it’s good; Zayn likes being in Danny’s space. He hasn’t been in _this_ kind of Danny’s space in a while though, and he tries not to overthink the way his heart’s fluttering, remembering instead the sleepovers featuring blanket fort attempts, and the time Danny taught him shadow puppets. 

He polishes off the dregs of tea and discards the mug on the bedside table, feeling warmer. Sighing, he shifts down, plopping against the bed without grace, and Danny nuzzles in between Zayn’s neck and shoulder, newly viable territory, and snuffles there. “Sleep now,” he whispers. Zayn’s uncertain as to Danny’s degree of consciousness, but rolls into him regardless, pressing his own face into Danny’s shoulder. He feels calmer, now, compact and enfolded, and after a few minutes of slowed breathing, does as he’s told and drifts off.

When he wakes next, it’s a proper hour, the sky as bright as it’s going to get in a shade of bleak gray and a couple of tough winter weather birds chirping in the stripped trees outside their windows. Zayn realizes he’s nestled into the crook of Danny’s armpit, that Danny’s still asleep on his back, one arm curled around Zayn, keeping him tucked in. Zayn closes his eyes again and hooks a leg over one of Danny’s possessively, inhales the scent of sleep and faint sweat. Danny’s breath shudders in his chest as he wakes—Zayn can hear it intimately from where his ear’s pressed to Danny’s side. 

Danny makes a series of incoherent noises, a small whine-yawn-groan, and Zayn feels fingers begin to card clumsily through his hair. “Z,” Danny says, the single syllable somehow long and reverential off his tongue. “You awake?”

“Kinda,” Zayn confesses, voice muted by thirst and disuse. 

“Happy birthday,” Danny cheers weakly, continuing his petting.

Zayn laughs fleetingly into the thin shirt over Danny’s ribs. “Thanks.”

“Feel like getting up?” 

“Nope.”

“All right,” Danny sighs, seeming nonplussed. “Whatever the birthday boy wants, yeah.” 

Zayn dislodges himself and crawls up so they’re level, cracks one eye open and squints it. “Birthday boy wants holiday in the tropics,” he pouts, drawing the covers in tighter to make a point.

Danny clucks his disappointment. “Sorry, try again.”

“The power of flight?”

“Strike two,” Danny teases, his smile waking up the rest of his face. “Though, I like that you knew a holiday in the tropics would be less likely than the power of flight.” Zayn is struck, then, by something intangible but inarguable, as he watches Danny’s chuckle crease crow’s feet near his eyes and bring a pinkish tint to his cheeks; he feels like he’s opened his eyes to a sky full of previously undiscovered stars, the sensation creeping up from his toes and engulfing him. He bites his lip while Danny continues, “How about something manageable? Like, I dunno, breakfast?”

“A kiss,” Zayn says, quick and hushed, afraid to look directly at him but forcing himself to do it anyway. He can feel the stinging heat of a blush in the tips of his ears. “How ‘bout a kiss?”

Danny goes still, stunned, probably, and Zayn watches in equal parts fascination and terror as he shifts into something much more serious. “Zayn,” he breathes, eyes moving rapidly over Zayn’s face, cataloging something unfathomable to Zayn. He brings a hand up, fingers skirting tremulously down Zayn’s cheek to hold his chin. “Yeah?” 

“Yeah,” Zayn nods, swallowing. “Yes,” he assures, and, “Danny,” just as Danny simultaneously hauls him closer and skims his lips over Zayn’s sighing ones. Zayn closes his eyes and melts, relaxing instantly, reveling in the pliable, almost peaceful press of Danny’s merciful mouth. 

He doesn’t mean to make the wounded sound he does when Danny pulls away. “Just one?” Danny asks, sounding breathless and slightly agonized. “ _A_ kiss?”

Zayn frowns and looks up through slanted eyelashes. “More, if I can have them,” he dares to say, his body thrumming.

Zayn watches the calculations cross Danny’s face, hesitant at first, but then smiling so brightly it's almost paralyzing to behold. “You can have them all,” Danny answers, quiet but laden with conviction and sincerity. “You can have everything, even.”

Zayn’s just turned twenty, and Danny’s roughly six months into twenty-two, when Zayn pulls Danny down into their second kiss, and feels distinctly, for the first time after months in London, at home.


End file.
